1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to the field of vibration analysis and more particularly to the field of performing vibration analysis for the purpose of providing device adjustments that reduce vibrations.
2. Description of Related Art
Rotors which propel helicopters and other propeller-driven aircraft induce vibrations in the structure supporting the rotor. The vibrations occur at frequencies that correspond to the shaft rotation rate and harmonics thereof. The vibrations may result in a structural damage, crew fatigue, and ultimately become one of the factors limiting the maximum forward speed of the aircraft. Similar types of vibrations are produced by fans and compressors and fixed installations as well as by marine propellers.
A primary source of the vibration problem is non-uniform air loads on the blades, although mass imbalance is not uncommon. Aerodynamic anomalies, however, tend to develop recurrently due to blade wear, damage, deformation, etc. The aerodynamic and mass and stiffness distribution anomalies have often been called “tracking faults”, since a primary observable feature of the uneven airloads or mass distribution is it tendency for the blades to flap and/or deflect unevenly, and thus follow different “tracks”. The troublesome manifestation of the aerodynamic and mass imbalance, however, is usually the 1/rev and n/rev vibrations and not the track deviations themselves.
It is possible to modify the vibration characteristics of a helicopter by “rotor trimming”, which involves adjusting the weight of the blades at the hub, the tab setting at one or more blades, and the adjustment on the pitch rods. However, determining the effect of each of these adjustments may be difficult because the interdependence of the adjustments. This interdependence may be the source of some difficulty with trial and error methods of rotor trimming, which may allow variation of only one type of adjustment at a time. One set of adjustments may be thrown out of kilter by a subsequent step in the process, requiring repetitive adjustments which may or may not converge to an acceptable state.
Some helicopter rotor trim balancing methods rely, at least in part, upon making the track of each blade identical using, for example, known optical methods. Optical methods, however, employ bulky equipment which relies upon an operator in the co-pilot seat and procedures which require considerable flight time. Furthermore, optical methods cannot always “see” the blades during a complete revolution and thus cannot be expected to achieve perfect aerodynamic trim. Thus, it is desirable to trim the rotor without having to resort to optical tracking. Fortunately, mechanically balancing the rotors to reduce vibrations often has the desirable effect of improving the rotor track.
Mechanical balancing of rotors with mass imbalance may, in some cases, be performed with a single accelerometer and a shaft-phase reference sensor. However, uneven air loads may not be fully diagnosed and corrected with such a technique. Other techniques used to perform the rotor smoothing function may rely upon optical tracking in conjunction accelerometers. Known rotor smoothing systems, however, process vibration data in such a way that there may be an inherent ambiguity in the interpretation of the signatures. The ambiguity comes about because, in many cases, the number of channels processed simultaneously is inadequate to fully separate translational and rotational acceleration components at a given point. Thus, the motion of the helicopter (and in particular the rotor support) in response to a rotor anomalies may be incompletely specified. Furthermore, some systems may not deduce the corrections needed from the Fourier coefficients related to each anomaly.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,937,758, which is incorporated herein by reference, attempts to address these problems by disclosing techniques that take into account the interdependence of the adjustments. However, the system disclosed therein suffers from drawbacks, including difficulties in adequately relating different types of adjustments to each other and difficulties associated with specifying adjustments that do not take into account acceptable granularity and quantization of the adjustments. Furthermore, it is also desirable to minimize the risk associated with a proposed adjustment where the risk corresponds to the size of the adjustment when compared to the maximum allowable adjustment of that type (i.e., it is more risky to make a large adjustment than a small one). In addition, in some instances it is desirable to be able to correlate risks associated with different types of adjustments (e.g., compare the risk associated with an N ounce hub weigh adjustment with the risk associated with an M degree tab bend).
U.S. Pat. No. 6,567,757 addresses some of the issues discussed above, but does not present a solution for an aircraft having more than one rotor.